


All Vows

by flowerfan



Series: A still, small voice [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: COVID-19, Established Relationship, Fluff, Jewish Good Omens (Good Omens), Love, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Self-Reflection, Yom Kippur | Atonement Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26697157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerfan/pseuds/flowerfan
Summary: It's Yom Kippur again, and Crowley can't stop watching you tube videos of the Kol Nidrei service.  It's hard to know where he fits, but Aziraphale is there to help.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: A still, small voice [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1942771
Comments: 11
Kudos: 24





	All Vows

Crowley hit pause on the video he was watching and shifted on the couch, pulling out his earbuds when it became clear that Aziraphale was talking to him (he could hear him either way, of course, but Aziraphale said it was rude to keep them in during a conversation).

“Are you still listening to Kol Nidrei services?” Aziraphale asked. “I don’t think you’re actually required to do it multiple times.” There was a soft smile tugging at his face, but Crowley didn’t mind the gentle teasing. He knew he was being a little, well, obsessive.

“I’m not required to do it at all,” he reminded Aziraphale. Demons didn’t need to go to temple. Crowley was aiming for a casual tone, but he kind of ruined it by swiping at his eyes, which were leaking rather annoyingly. Traitors.

“Being able to remotely watch Yom Kippur services from all over the world is a silver-”

“Do _not_ say that again, Aziraphale,” Crowley grumbled, returning to more familiar territory. Aziraphale continued to find the “silver lining” in the COVID disaster in everything from less crowded roads to the months and months he’d had to try out different variations on his macaron recipe (Crowley had drawn the line at lobster maracons with buttercream and crabmeat filling), and every time, it grated on his nerves. No “rain bow” was going to make up for this disaster.

“I’m sorry, dear,” Aziraphale said, sliding over and taking Crowley’s hand. “I don’t mean to downplay your concern. But it is long past sundown here, and presumably in…” Aziraphale craned his neck to see what Crowley had been watching on his tablet, “New York City, and I think you can take a break now.”

Crowley let out a long breath, and laid his head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. “Kol Nidrei means ‘all vows’ in Aramaic,” he said.

“Hmm, yes,” Aziraphale agreed.

“Do you remember, then – when it got started… medieval times, all those persecuted Jews, forced to convert to other religions. They wanted to return to their own community...” 

“But they were worried that the oath they had sworn to God to follow another religion would get in the way. So the congregations developed the Kol Nidrei prayer to absolve them of the oaths they had made.”

Crowley dug his chin into Aziraphale’s warm shoulder, and Aziraphale gave his hand a squeeze. Of course Aziraphale knows all about it, they were both there, bearing witness to the many ways humans have wronged each other year after year in the name of religion. But something about this particular religious ritual, a legal formula recited every fall to address each person’s own relationship with their god, has hit him hard tonight.

“D’ya think it worksss for me?” Crowley asked quietly, his voice rebelling against him as surely as his eyes had earlier. “Can I be forgiven, for the vows I sssshouldn’t have made? Or does it not work, since She threw me out in the first place?” Was it still a vow against God if God pretty much forced him into it?

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, unclasping his hand from Crowley’s and enveloping him in a tight hug instead. “It works for everyone. _Vah-yoe-mare Adonai, sah-lach-tee kid’vorecha._ ”

“And Adonai said, ‘I have pardoned them as you have asked,’” Crowley repeated, roughly translating the end of the prayer he had heard so many times.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes, Aziraphale adjusting his hold on Crowley to something more comfortable. Crowley snuggled against Aziraphale’s chest, rubbing his cheek along the worn velvet of Aziraphale’s waistcoat, a feeling of safety and warmth spreading through his body.

“So, which one was your favorite?” Aziraphale asked after a while, shifting so that he could reclaim his tea from where he had abandoned it at the other end of the couch. It was still at the perfect temperature, of course, despite the fact that he hadn’t taken a sip of it for quite a while.

“My favorite…?”

“Your favorite service. You must have watched a dozen of them tonight.”

It had been more than that, actually, if you counted all of the ones Crowley just checked out on you tube for a few minutes and then noped out of if it wasn’t particularly interesting.

“I always found that fancy congregation in Manhattan a bit too stuffy,” Aziraphale said, referring to the last one Crowley had viewed, and Crowley huffed out a laugh. Anything too stuffy for Aziraphale was, let’s say, more than a bit behind the times.

“Newt and Anathema had a good service in their backyard, actually,” Crowley said, grabbing his phone and swiping around until he found what he was looking for, then playing a snippet of the recording for Aziraphale. There were less traditional instruments playing along with the traditional prayers, and Aziraphale smiled as they heard what sounded like a ukulele.

“Anathema will really do anything for Newt, won’t she?” Aziraphale murmured approvingly. Anathema wasn’t Jewish, at least not by birth.

“Well, she thinks the cantor might be under some sort of spell, given how long she can hold out those high notes without breathing, so she’s taking a professional interest.”

Crowley showed Aziraphale a few pictures Anathema had sent him that afternoon, of Newt and Anathema’s yard, set up for a small group of neighbors with chairs spread out at least six feet apart. Their guests were all bringing their own prayer books, or using their phones to access the texts. Even some communities who usually wouldn’t allow the use of technology on the holidays had made exceptions for a variety of practices given the need to stay safe during the pandemic, although Crowley was pretty sure Newt and Anathema weren’t so conservative in their observance anyway. 

“Things really are different this year,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley nodded. “Yup. Tomorrow someone is coming by to play the shofar for them. Apparently the guy is just going to go from house to house, if you want him to come play it for you, you just have to let him know and he’ll stop by. Home-delivery shofar blowing. But,” Crowley broke off, swiping until he found another photograph, and then turning his phone so Aziraphale could see the image of the long, curved ram’s horn with a mask somehow attached to the end, “it has to wear a mask too. It could be a super-spreader.”

Aziraphale stared at the photo of the shofar with a mask on it and started to giggle. Crowley harrumphed, but then Aziraphale did that little wiggle that meant he was truly endeared, and Crowley started giggling too.

“Humans are endlessly creative,” Aziraphale said into Crowley’s neck, when the giggles had subsided and they were once more curled up around each other. “They will rise to this challenge, as they have before.”

“Do you really think so, angel?” Crowley asked. 

“I do, Crowley. I really do. And we’ll be here to watch them.”

“Together,” Crowley said shyly, hiding his blush in the soft fluff of Aziraphale’s hair. Because no matter what vows Crowley had made, no matter what heaven or hell had required of him, somehow, Aziraphale was still here.

“Yes, of course, dear boy,” Aziraphale replied, nuzzling a delicate kiss into the spot just behind Crowley’s ear, fond and steady and true. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Here I am again, for some crazy reason, writing another Yom Kippur fic. Yom Kippur is the Jewish day of atonement. The Kol Nidrei prayer is thought to have originated as a result of Jews being forced to convert to Christianity or Islam upon pain of death. Afterwards, many of the forced converts wanted to return to Judaism, but this was complicated by the fact that they had been forced to swear vows to another religion. The Kol Nidrei legal formula was developed to enable them to return, to absolve them of their vows made to God under duress, and is now still recited each year at the beginning of Yom Kippur. The melody of the Kol Nidrei prayer, which became standardized in the 1800’s, is particularly haunting. To hear and see the Kol Nidrei sung by Cantor Angela Buchdahl, the first Asian-American to be ordained as a rabbi and cantor and an amazing person, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-C-8f_SoNqg.
> 
> Jewish communities around the world, large and small, have been conducting remotely accessible services this year, and finding numerous ways to allow people to come together for high holiday observance in one form or another while still following social distancing guidelines and keeping each other safe. As just one of many examples, Temple Emanu-El of New York has made its high holiday services available online to everyone; you can find the Kol Nidrei service here: https://www.emanuelnyc-hhdlive.org/kol-nidrei-service (as noted in Wikipedia, Temple Emanu-El is the first Reform Jewish congregation in New York City and, because of its size and prominence, has served as a flagship congregation in the Reform branch of Judaism since its founding in 1845. Its landmark Romanesque Revival building on Fifth Avenue is one of the largest synagogues in the world. I was there once for a wedding - it blew me away, and honestly, most Jewish synagogues don’t look anything like it, but it is a very lovely place to have visited).
> 
> As always, everyone's experience with religion and is very personal. I hope that this story gives you a little hope in this difficult time. L'shana tova (happy new year).


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